


The Great Below

by SyntacticSugar



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Angels, Demons, Established Relationship, Fiore and DeBlanc's Trunk, Flower of White, Hell, M/M, Season Finale, Spoilers, The Saint of Killers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 00:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7663300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntacticSugar/pseuds/SyntacticSugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiore stumbled off the bus from hell. Hand reaching and clutching for purchase on the edge of the trunk. He barely was able to wobbly sit on it before the bus was driving into the distance.</p>
<p>The trunk was the closest thing he now had to home; it held Genesis’ music box, his comics, DeBlanc’s’… His human brain stopped him from completing his inventory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Below

Fiore stumbled off the bus from hell. Hand reaching and clutching for purchase on the edge of the trunk. He barely was able to wobbly sit on it before the bus was driving into the distance.

The trunk was the closest thing he now had to home; it held Genesis’ music box, his comics, DeBlanc’s’… His human brain stopped him from completing his inventory.

Fiore looked at his hands, covered in soot, they felt cold and clammy. He still felt weak in the knees, so much so, he didn’t know when he’d be able to stand. He rubbed his hand against his fingertips, not feeling the motions in his thumb or fingers. He must be dying he rationalized. His human body was too strained from hell and this was the beginning stages. Fiore thought of how he might kill himself to invigorate but it felt like gravity was a hundred times greater than the last time he was on Earth and he was having trouble holding up his head. He seemed to be breathing a lot, which didn’t make sense to him either, as he was sitting, not moving, but his lungs seemed to ache with every quick breath.

 Maybe DeBlanc would help – ‘NO’ – his brain caught him again, wouldn’t let him finish the thought.

  
He subconsciously lifted his heavy clammy hand to his chest. It hurt, it positively ached, like a gunshot that never healed or killed him. It burned and ached and he must be dying. Good, then he could get a new body and DeBlanc—.

  
Fiore felt a pitiful, desperate moan of a dying creature ripped from his core and tumble out of his mouth. He didn’t know what was happening, surely he should have died by now, the pain overwhelming. He pressed his hand harder against his chest, trying to push some of the pain away, with no respite. The sounds continued, as he tried to swallow them, trying to control his body but it got further and further out of his control. His eyes now welled with liquid, overflowed and started running down his face, as his bemoaned wailing caused him to drink his own tears. It was torture, this death and Fiore wished he could expire from it at a faster rate. His nose he could feel started leaking as well, Fiore thinking his internal organs must be exploding and pouring out from his orifices. He was shaking too he realized, far too hot to be from the chills, so he couldn’t understand what was causing it; thinking that it must be part of this death.

  
His body curled unto itself, Fiore realizing the ground was coming closer very quickly as he turned to his side to meet it halfway. When would it stop? He became a spectator in what his body would do next and it just continued doing what it had for the last few minutes to hours later, as the sun had moved and he felt his face and hands were burning from exposure. Surely, any moment now, whatever this was would kill him. He hated pain, and this was the worst he had ever felt. All his deaths had been quick. He closed his eyes hoping if he did his human body would blackout.

  
He wanted, his teeth chattering as he reached out to grab loosely on the trunk, “DeBlanc!”. He wanted DeBlanc. He found himself crying out for him. Why wouldn’t he come to him? It was hot, had he not put the air conditioning on? Fiore was exhausted, he didn’t know why. Didn’t they win the fight against the Seraphim? Surely if he was greatly wounded, but not fatally, DeBlanc would see to it that he’d be reinvigorated. He didn’t like having to kill a wounded DeBlanc, but DeBlanc made it clear he needed to be able to defend himself, Fiore or even Genesis – so it needed to be done. “DeBlanc!” he yelled, clearer. Why wasn’t he coming? Fiore wondered why the mattress felt so itchy, he reached his hand as far as it would go, stretching, and the bed was still warm, DeBlanc couldn’t have gone far. Fiore kept his eyes closed, gasping as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  
~*~

  
He woke later that night, moon glowing overhead, terror lingering in his brain and he didn’t know why.

  
Where is DeBlanc? His mind must have given up trying to protect him and supplied its answer – on the floor of the cowboy’s Ratwater bar, shot with a small hole in his forehead that made a mess out the back. The mind’s image clearer than reality.

  
Fiore involuntarily took a large breath, unable to get enough oxygen to his lungs as his mind raced.

  
He never ever should have pushed on the other option, of hell and The Saint. He didn’t know it would be like that. He just feared going back to heaven and losing DeBlanc for all eternity. Hell would be the answer to their problems and The Saint would get the job done and they could finally go home as a family, together and be done with this Earth business. Fiore knew, as long as he had DeBlanc and they were together, then it would be fine if they went to hell.

  
He knew that DeBlanc didn’t want to go back, who would, it was hell after all… He also admitted, to Fiore, he was afraid of back being stuck in hell, knowing he too would be trapped in a cycle of his worst memory until someone in hell decided to release him to kill on Earth before being pulled back to his own domicile. One without love and the worst moment of his life looping again and again and again.

  
DeBlanc also feared Fiore being in hell – although DeBlanc never said it – he didn’t have to. The only angels in hell were fallen angels, Fiore knew. Stories of hell and its prisoners of heaven reached all those above. Your wings would be cut from true form and you would be tortured until you lost your soul. If you still resisted, you would be disarticulated, tongueless, earless and without eyes, trapped within your own mind. Stories continued, that if an angel died in hell, they would not reinvigorate. Fiore knew all this, but this was to get back Genesis. He was there’s – DeBlanc and Fiore’s - and they had to do anything and everything, which included going to hell.

  
Fiore locked his jaw once they stepped in the cowboy’s hell. DeBlanc said for him to do the talking, himself feeling on edge as he heard the whispers of other demons in the far-far distance. The conversation, if either of them would call it that, with the cowboy was brief. Fiore locked his stare on the cowboy. ‘Be brave, you have DeBlanc, think of Genesis’. The cowboy’s eyes flicked to silent Fiore and held firm and DeBlanc noticed. He stepped forward, getting the cowboys attention, making him focus on DeBlanc alone when he said “Come with us and we’ll tell you.”

  
Which wasn’t what the cowboy wanted to hear and promptly, without hesitation shot DeBlanc center of the forehead killing his body instantly. Fiore, wasn’t able to suppress the tiniest of whines. Maybe he would die here.

  
DeBlanc, he was a demon, he would be fine if he died in hell, but it didn’t ease Fiore’s mind as an ice cold chill went down his spine. As the cowboy now asked him questions, simple; who, what, where questions. Fiore answered honestly with his mind counting how long DeBlanc had been gone.

  
This was the longest time DeBlanc had ever taken in reinvigorating. When they died, which happened too frequently on Earth, sometimes took time - but this was too long. The cowboy seemed satisfied at the four or so questions he was asked, lowering his guns and turning back to finish the bottle on the bar. Fiore looked a second, just a moment, looked down at what was DeBlanc’s’ body, just a few minutes ago. The look of it, with the time lengthening, stirred something in Fiore and he didn’t like it, he couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but it was bad. Fiore knew he was taking too long in his ‘moment’, but he kept looking at DeBlanc’s body’s eyes – flat - gazing at the ceiling. At nothing at all.

  
The cowboy knocked the empty bottle on the bar, which Fiore brought his attention back to the cowboy who said simply, “lead the way”, looking the direction in which DeBlanc and Fiore had come from.

  
Getting the cowboy out of hell was simple, DeBlanc stated, he would, as soon as he had a mission and left his loop, would be free of his hell. The cowboy just had to agree and step out the door in which they had entered. Then it was up to the cowboy to escape to Earth. Which the both of them were positive he could.

  
So Fiore led him, saw him a step behind him, both of them walking through the door and then he and Fiore were separated in the storm.  
The loop seemed to be collapsing in itself, Fiore lost in a windstorm of otherworldly proportions, walked forward, away from the ‘bar’. He wasn’t sure how long he walked or how far, but he ending up walking into a wall.

Which happened to be a bus. THE bus.

  
“Get on.” The driver said and Fiore did.

  
He sat, unable to think of anything at all, until the sunlight of daylight on Earth started peeking through the fog outside, screams still lingering, echoing. It was then that Fiore asked, “Why’d you come and pick me up?”

  
The bus driver didn’t meet his eyes or pay attention other than to answer his question. “The other one gave me some good stuff for the way back, but I did tell him it was only enough for one, but you must have hashed that one out.”

  
Fiore felt that funny feeling again. It felt a little like the feeling he had when he looked at DeBlanc’s body’s eyes. He now understood why DeBlanc needed to talk to the bus driver when they were dropped off in hell. He said he needed to get some information from him, it would be demon to demon, alone.

  
It wasn’t for information.

  
It was to make sure Fiore got out of hell.

  
~*~

  
An hour or so after Fiore awoke in the middle of the night, he realized he was alone. He had made peace with being hidden away from other angels, from God, because of his new role as custodian. Fiore wasn’t alone - he had DeBlanc – for all eternity; with Genesis.

Not anymore. He felt truly alone for the first time.

He was terrified, with an aching in his chest, gasping, unable to open his eyes, his blistered face and hands from sunburns, mouth and eyes drier than sandpaper and vaguely tasting of blood - his mind looping endlessly on the cowboys hell, starting to believe it was not the cowboy’s but it was actually his own - only then, did he finally die. 

 

~*~

  
It wasn’t that far away from the trunk that Fiore reinvigorated. Like a moth to the flame, he found himself drifting back to it, again sitting on it. Looking at his previous body. For some reason it wasn’t as haunting as he found DeBlanc’s and he couldn’t figure out why. He was pleased to be rid of the failing body until he realized the ache was still there, in his chest, seeming to pound in pain along with his heart.

  
He wondered if all his bodies were damaged from going to hell or that maybe it was the desert that was effecting it, he would just ask DeBlanc, he turned and didn’t see him; the realization made that raspy sob come back in his new body. He stood up and stomped his foot.

Fiore would wait, endlessly, forever dying near the trunk waiting for DeBlanc. He would.

  
But he knew DeBlanc would be yelling at him for dying unnecessarily, even if he had to live with this new chronic injury. Their mission was to find and go home with Genesis. Waiting for DeBlanc would not make a difference, it would not bring back Genesis.

  
Fiore got up off the case, new legs wobbly again and determinately dragged his dead body close enough into a ditch. Good enough.

  
He picked up the trunk and went in search of the nearest hotel. He would take inventory and maybe, if he admitted it or not, wait at least overnight, before leaving the town.

  
He was proud of himself, with this chronic fatal injury, moving the trunk himself, finding and checking into a hotel. If he expired in the night, he’d just dispose of his old body and remember their mission.  
He laid down, alone on the cold bedsheets.

  
He didn’t know how he would sleep, but he felt drained, even in this new body. Sleep would come eventually.

  
Right before his body fell into unconsciousness, Fiore grasped to hold on to the feeling, during the moment before he slipped under, quick and fleeting. Only then - could he still feel DeBlanc, even so far away.

**Author's Note:**

> I could see poor Fiore not understanding what was happening to him on Earth - with never before being heartbroken and truly alone. I wanted to make a fix-it fic... but instead wrote this. 
> 
> If you need me, I'll be camping with Fiore at the trunk.


End file.
